Historic Burra - South Australia

We have passed through Burra many times on our way to somewhere else, but we have never taken the time to truly enjoy it. On our trip south from the Flinders Ranges, we decided to stop and spend three days here, exploring the town and its surrounding area.
 
We camped at the showground for $15 per night. This fee included power, water, and a dump point and was located just 2 km north of the town.

It was the first surveyed mining town in Australia, and by 1851, it became Australia's largest inland town due to the discovery of the world's largest copper deposit.
 
Many of its historic buildings remain intact, offering visitors a glimpse into the past.
 
The information centre has a heritage passport. It cost us $50 with our senior concessions, along with a refundable $50 bond for a key that grants access to eight locked sites. Included is a booklet listing another 38 sites around town. It took us two full days to visit all the sites listed.
 
The open-cut mine produced 50,000 tonnes of copper, which in the early years was transported to Port Adelaide before being shipped to Wales for smelting and refining. In 1894, smelters were built near Burra to reduce the huge transport costs.

Some of the sites that require a passport and key include:
 
With the influx of people and the shortage of accommodation, the Miners' Dugouts were carved into the banks of Burra Creek, with an estimated 600 dugouts. A flood devastated the area, and by 1860, they were virtually deserted.

The Police Lockup and Stables were built in 1847, with the cells in use until the Redruth Gaol was constructed in 1856.

Redruth Gaol was built in 1856 and housed 30 prisoners, both male and female. It was later renovated after the prisoners were moved to another gaol and reopened to house girls, before finally closing in 1922. The 1997 film, Breaker Morant, was filmed there.

Located in Paxton Square, the row of 33 cottages was built from 1849 onwards. Malowen Lowarth Cottage has been furnished in the period.

Unicorn Brewery Cellars were constructed in 1873 and remained in operation until 1902. 

Hampton Township, built from 1857, housed up to 30 miners' cottages. The township also contained quarries that supplied the stone for many of the buildings in Burra. It was finally abandoned in the 1960s.

The town caters to travellers with numerous cafes and restaurants. We enjoyed a lovely Sunday lunch at La Pecora Nera (The Black Sheep) and can highly recommend their wood-fired pizzas.

On the outskirts of town, this old homestead served as the cover for the Midnight Oils 'Diesel and Dust' album.

Towards the Flinders Ranges

We have enjoyed our week here in Streaky Bay. It has given us the chance to clean the 4WD inside and out after our nearly 4,000 km trip on dirt. 
 
Cleaning the van's exterior cladding is a different matter. There are currently water restrictions in all the places we have visited, so this will remain in effect until we return home.

We headed down the west coast of the Eyre Peninsula as far as Elliston before heading east across the middle of the peninsula through Lock and Cleve. Tonight we are spending the evening in Cowell. We had intended to camp at the free campsite just south of town, but the road was being tarred and covered in blue metal. As we did not want this on the van or car, we opted to stay at the caravan park near the foreshore.

 

We dined out at the Commercial Hotel, where I had a dozen oysters followed by King George whiting, while Ros had the roast of the day. The oysters were to die for, but unfortunately, the whiting was a little overcooked and dry.

 

From here, we headed up the rest of the west coast towards Port Augusta, before turning north towards Quorn, where we stopped for a late morning tea at one of the many cafes.

 

Continuing further north, we stopped at the Kanyaka historic site for some photos. At one stage, the station was one of the largest sheep stations in the southern Flinders Ranges.

We are now heading to Rawnsley Park Station to catch up with Ros's sister Leone and her husband Rick. It's our first visit here, even though we have been to the Flinders on numerous occasions. 

On our final evening, we booked a table at the Woolshed Restaurant for a wonderful dinner and live entertainment. Ros and I selected a lamb tasting plate as our main course, made with Rawnsley's own lamb. 

Towards Streaky Bay

We left New Norcia on a very cold morning, with temperatures at just nine degrees. Our drive took us south along the Great Northern Highway for about 40 kilometres before passing through Toodyay and continuing to Northam, where we refuelled and topped up our water tanks.
 
We then headed south to the charming town of York. We drove through its centre, with its lovely old buildings, and it is now stored in our memories for a future visit, where we can spend three or four days exploring.
 
Our plan for the evening was to camp at Gorge Rock, just south-east of Corrigin, but as it was still fairly early in the afternoon, we decided to make our way towards Hyden and stay at the Wave Rock caravan park. All the sites there were on dirt, and most were not level but sloped towards the front.

We did the usual touristy things like climbing the rock and taking photos before retreating
back to the van and enjoying a few happy hour drinks. 

Ros prepared a lovely pasta meal with salami and olives before we settled down to watch some TV and then go to bed. There was no access unless you had a satellite dish, and I was really surprised ours was able to receive a signal with such a large tree in our way.
 
We had a late start this morning after Ros finished a couple of loads of laundry. Today, we were heading along the Hyden to Norseman Road. It is 295 km long, with the first 44 km being paved with bitumen and the rest being a good-quality dirt road. There is a mine along this route, which explains the quality of the surface.
 
It's also part of the Granite and Woodlands Discovery Trail, with sixteen designated stopping points showcasing aspects of each area. One of these was the State Barrier Fence, formerly known as the rabbit-proof fence, constructed between 1901 and 1907 to prevent rabbits from entering pastoral lands from the east.

We arrived at McDermid Rock just after 12:30 and decided to spend the evening there. After lunch, we climbed the rock and took some photos before sitting in the shade and reading for the rest of the afternoon. We thought we would have the place to ourselves, but around 4:00, several camper trailers, followed by two vans and someone towing a boat with tents in the back, arrived for the evening.

Eleven degrees inside the van this morning at 6:30, with the sky overcast and a strong wind blowing from the west. We left our site with just 106 km to Norseman. We stopped briefly to take a photo of Lake Johnston, which appeared to be completely dry. It would make a very nice camp if the lake were full.

The rest of the road was in excellent condition, just as it had been the day before. Our first stop was to refuel at $1.50 per litre, before buying groceries at the local IGA, and then heading to a nearby café for cakes and coffee.
 
Our camp for the evening was at Baxter rest area, after travelling a total of 420 km for the day. We found a spot about half a kilometre from the highway that had been used to store blue metal for roadworks. 

Another peaceful evening with just nine degrees inside the van this morning and a gentle westerly breeze. I can't believe our second day will again be with a tail wind. We stopped at two locations to take photos as we continued east. Unfortunately, the photo of the Bunda Cliffs below was the best we could manage given the position of the sun so early in the morning.

Our site tonight was 500 km further on and 70 km east of the border, in an area on the northern side of the highway, and best of all, we had the whole place to ourselves. Once again, we managed to get quite far back from the road, with only minimal noise from passing trucks during the night.

We left at 9:30 and, after travelling 90 km, filled up at the Nullarbor Roadhouse for $1.90 per litre. Our plan was to camp somewhere before Ceduna this evening, but we made such good progress that we reached Smoky Bay. We're now in the caravan park near the water, with only about ten other groups camping here at the moment.

 

We spent the afternoon exploring this small town, with its quaint fibro shacks lining the foreshore, but there were also some newly built, quite expensive two-storey homes overlooking the sea.

With just 70 km to drive today, we left around 10 am. We were heading to camp at the Streaky Bay Islands caravan park. It's a new park with spacious sites and lovely amenities, but it’s very exposed to the weather. It’s also 7.5 km out of Streaky Bay township and has very patchy internet access. We booked for two nights with the option to stay longer. 
We had lunch at the Streaky Bay pub on our first day, and the King George Whiting was magnificent.

On our first evening, the skies darkened and the wind picked up but then died down, leading us to believe that the bad weather had passed. However, it returned later that evening with the worst conditions between 1 and 4 am. Wind gusts of more than 70 km/h buffeted the van for the rest of the night and into the next day. 

We decided to move into the Foreshore van park right in Streaky Bay that would provide us with more protection from the wind and improve our internet service.